DECODING BRAND RAJINI

RAJINIKANTH, ONE OF THE HIGHEST PAID ACTORS IN ASIA, COMMANDED A COOL ₹110 CRORE FOR HIS LATEST OUTING, THE SUPER HIT JAILER. WHAT DRIVES THE ENDURING BRAND VALUE OF THIS 72-YEAR-OLD SUPERSTAR?

- VIDYA S.

A SIMPLE BUT STYLISH man is a conductor on bus number 10A in erstwhile Bangalore (now Bengaluru). Elsewhere, an innocent milkman leads a contented life.

One day, the conductor’s bus-driver friend urges him to join the Adyar Film Institute in Madras (now Chennai). Another day, the milkman’s wealthy hotelier best friend betrays him.

The aspiring actor gets noticed by the noted Tamil film director K. Balachander, who offers him a role in his movie and rechristens him. The enraged milkman vows to become more successful than his friend.

The actor ascends from negative roles to stardom, acting in more than 170 films over the next 50 years. The milkman toils over the next 15 years to become a wealthy hotelier, while his friend descends into a downward financial spiral.

The reigning ‘superstar’ of the Tamil film industry makes fans go crazy well into his twilight years. The milkman wins the challenge and reconciles with his repentant friend.

These are both tropes of a rags-to-riches story worthy of a commercial potboiler. But one is the real-life tale of Shivaji Rao Gaekwad who became ‘Rajinikanth’. The latter is the plot of the 1992 film Annamalai that transformed him from a star into the aforementioned superstar.

The reel-meets-real backstory is one of the powerful drivers of ‘Brand Rajini’—which offers possibilities and hope of a better tomorrow to his audience and has propelled his own stratospheric growth to the top. And his appeal doesn’t seem to be waning. The actor, who will soon turn 73, has delivered one of the biggest super hits of his career in the recently released